The Daily Croissant

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"Medical science has come a long way in the 20th and 21st centuries and a few of the most important innovations have paved the way for a future of medical discoveries. Smallpox alone killed more than 500,000,000 people. In the 18th century, nearly half a million people succumbed to the disease every year. The smallpox vaccine is just one of many medical discoveries that helped save millions of lives. Here are a few of history’s top discoveries."

""Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food" - Hippocrates. That is the message from the founding father of modern medicine echoed in the controversial new documentary film Food Matters from Producer-Directors James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch.  

With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what's wrong with our malnourished bodies, it's no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide 'sickness industry' and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for overcoming illness naturally.

In what promises to be the most contentious idea put forward, the filmmakers have interviewed several world leaders in nutrition and natural healing who claim that not only are we harming our bodies with improper nutrition, but that the right kind of foods, supplements and detoxification can be used to help with chronic illnesses as fatal as terminally diagnosed cancer.

 The focus of the film is in helping us rethink the belief systems fed to us by our modern medical and health care establishments. The interviewees point out that not every problem requires costly, major medical attention and reveal many alternative therapies that can be more effective, more economical, less harmful and less invasive than conventional medical treatments."

"It’s called conolidine, and it’s been used for many years in traditional Chinese, Ayurvedic, and Thai medicines.

Originally isolated from the bark of a tropical, ornamental flowering plant Tabernaemontana divaricata (also known as crepe jasmine or pinwheel flower, pictured), the compound from the leaves and roots have been used for anti-inflammation and pain relief, respectively.

Now, a synthetic form of the rare natural product can alleviate fever and acute pain as well, according to researchers from the Scripps Research Institute.

Conolidine belongs to a larger class of natural products, called C5-nor stemmadenines, members of which have been described as opioid analgesics belonging to the same class of compounds as morphine and hydrocone.

But because conolidine is not an opioid, it might offer pain relief without complications like the development of dependence and nausea."